The new Ochsenbraterei building

After 36 years, the Spaten brewery's Ochsenbraterei gets a new tent for Oktoberfest 2017.

The Ochsenbraterei gets a new tent for the 184th Munich Oktoberfest. The construction firm Pletschacher, who has an Oktoberfest monopoly after the acquisition of Deuter this year, designed a new tent together with the Spaten brewery, which will keep the most significant design elements of the old tent but also introduce many structural innovations, which could already be seen in last year’s new Hackerzelt.

In past decades, the Ochsenbraterei had a beautiful, pleasantly unagitated building, which didn’t hide the fact, that is was designed in the late 70s and first built in 1980, though. The classic white and blue ribbons under the ceiling held by Trachtler figures and the characteristic Oxen grill above the entrance will still remain in the new building. Also, the capacity of 7641 will be in the same range as it used to be. However, some tables will change their location to the upper floor together with toilets and office space, as we have already seen it in the Hackerzelt. This change will allow to enlarge the kitchen and the aisles downstairs.

In order to create space for additional tables in the upper floor, the tent’s roof is raised two meters, to allow a balcony on all four sides of the tent with tables in the east and west as in the past and now also in the south – the beer garden side. In contradiction to the Hackerzelt, this south balcony will not be part of the beer garden but also be inside.

Before the city of Munich ceased the direct access from the U-Bahn to the fairgrounds with the introduction of the ban on bags, the so-called Street 1, between the Fischer-Vroni and the Ochsenbraterei was a very busy, sometimes too busy street. Just now, one year later, the city saw the need to enlarge that street by moving the Ochsenbraterei ten meters to the south. Maybe, this is a sign that the useless ban on bags won’t stay forever…

This move to the south not only means that the whole infrastructure of the tent had to be moved, but also that there is less space left on the beer garden side. As the beer garden is not supposed to shrink, there won’t be any shacks on this side of Street 2 anymore, which creates a completely new, potentially open situation there. We’re curious how this will be solved.